Good morning everyone and welcome. My name is Leonor and I will be your conference operator. Welcome to Tiendas 3B Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. There will be a question and answer session after the speaker's remarks and instructions will be given at that time. Please note that this call is for investors and analysts only. Questions from the media will not be taken nor should the call be reported on. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call are based on information that is currently available to us. Today we're joined by Tiendas 3B’s Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Hatoum and Chief Financial Officer Eduardo Pizzuto. I will now turn the call over to Anthony. Please go ahead.

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining 3B's third quarter 2024 earnings call. I will begin with a review of our operating results for the quarter and Eduardo Pizzuto, our CFO, will follow me and provide an overview of our financial performance. We will then open the floor for Q&A. I am pleased to report another strong quarter for 3B. This quarter we opened 131 net new stores bringing our total store count to 2,634 as of September 30th. Same-store sales for the quarter grew by 11.6% year on year while total revenues increased by 29.8% to reach PS 14.8 billion. Third quarter EBITDA reached PS 688 million. That is a 54% year-on-year increase. We prefer to measure cash flows on a cumulative year-to-year basis. Our quarterly numbers are available in our earnings report in the Appendix. You can expect that this number will be volatile on a quarterly basis. For the first nine months, net cash flows provided by operating activities reached approximately PS 2.3 billion or a 22.4% increase year on year. We ended the quarter with a net cash position of approximately PS 1.3 billion and an additional PS 2.9 billion in short-term U.S. bank-denominated positions. In U.S. dollar terms, our total cash position remains unchanged from the same period last year. Our rapid growth continues to be self-funded. Turning to operational performance, our store expansion is progressing strongly. As mentioned, we opened 131 net new stores in the third quarter of 2024. That makes 346 net new stores if we look at the first nine months of this year. Last year for the same nine-month period we opened 243 stores. So, this is a 42% increase versus last year. Regarding guidance that we shared on store openings in the range of 380 to 420, we will solidly meet them for 2024. Moving on to revenue and gross margins, total revenue grew by 29.8% year on year for the quarter. This was driven by an increase in same-store sales of 11.6% and the contributions from new stores opened in the last 24 months. Our gross profit margins compared to the same quarter last year remained flat at 15.8%. Efficiencies from scaling up were passed to price to the benefit of our customers. 3B continues to offer the market's best value for money in the products we sell. It's one of the key drivers of our success. I'll now pass the mic to Eduardo.

Thank you, Anthony. Good morning everyone. Our SG&A as a percentage of total revenue decreased by 51 basis points year over year from 13.9 to 13.4. Expenses as a percentage of revenue is an important metric for us. We look at it constantly to ensure a downward trend. This reflects our ongoing efforts to optimize expenses. We have seen a notable increase in our EBITDA of 54% from PS 447 million to PS 688 million or an increase of 73 basis points. This increase is driven by our sales growth and our operational efficiency. I remind you that we do not manage our business with an EBITDA goal in mind. EBITDA for us is a consequence of meeting revenues, product contribution margin, and lower cost as a percentage of sales objectives. We continue to generate a significant amount of cash from changes in negative working capital. In Q3 2024, our days in favor continue to be consistent with historical trends. As of September 30, 2024, adjusted negative working capital was 10.3% of total revenue, reflecting our operational efficiency and the strength of our business model. I'd like to remind you, as Anthony mentioned at the beginning, we continue to be self-funded despite a 42% increase in store openings versus last year and the opening of two distribution centers. I will now turn the microphone back to Anthony for closing remarks.

Thank you all again for joining us today. I'll leave you with the following thoughts. Very strong store openings in line with guidance. Very strong growth in sales and very healthy same-store sales growth. Very healthy improvement in cost as a percentage of sales as planned. Cash generation allows us to continue to fully self-fund ourselves for new store growth. We continue to do the same, just better and faster, and we are very excited for what's coming up next. We'll now start the Q&A session, so please go ahead, operator.

Thank you. We will now conduct the Q&A session with Anthony Hatoum and Eduardo Pizzuto. Please state your name before asking your question.

Hi, it's a representative from Bank of America. Hi, Anthony. Hi, Eduardo. Congratulations on the quarter and thank you for taking my questions. There was a sequential decline in gross margin along with a significant increase in operating leverage that was above the trend. I would like to understand what contributed to each of those figures. Additionally, what percentage of the store base is net in the trade area? How has that net value proposition changed in recent months? Lastly, Anthony, you've mentioned the growth rate a couple of times. You are annualizing nearly 500 new units, which seems to exceed your guidance. I would like to know how we should view the pace of new store openings for 2025. Thank you.

Bob, hi, let's start with the question about gross margin changes. Last quarter, you'll recall that our gross margin was 16.7%. And somebody on that call asked me whether that's the trend. And I replied that this number is a consequence of a lot of individual decisions that we make on pricing and you shouldn't see much into it as a trend because this number is going to fluctuate quarter to quarter. What we're seeing here is exactly that; nothing has changed in our strategy. We continue to price product by product to maximize volumes and peso operating profit. So, what you see here is a consequence of what we did over the last two quarters. Today, on your question, you asked several questions, but one of the questions was about Neto and other competitors. And let me say that with regards to Neto today, we have about 1,500 nettles next to our existing stores. What you're seeing is exactly our current performance continues to be extremely strong. So, we welcome all the competition and we're very confident that our value proposition is stronger than most. We are doing the right thing in terms of offering the best value for money to our customers and therefore attracting more customers, increasing the number of transactions, and increasing the amount of items that customers are buying from us over time. Bob, you also asked a question about real estate.

No, you asked about, Bob, if I'm not mistaken, you asked about operating leverage. Yes. Is that right? I'll take that one, Bob. I mean, really, we've done nothing different from what we've done in the past. As you know, we continue to look at hours worked at the store level and our distribution centers really everywhere. We look for ways to continue to make our operations more efficient. So that's the consequence of those actions. Sales expenses were down versus last year. Admin expenses are flat versus last year. And as you know, the explanation is that we continue to make investments in talent, mainly across the board. That also has to do with the additional number of distribution centers, the personnel at our headquarters and regional headquarters. We also have public company expenses now. But that is what has been driving mostly our operating leverage.

Last question you asked, Bob, was about the pace of store openings. We can say that we're going to solidly meet guidance. We believe that this market can sustain up to 20,000 3B stores over time. It's natural to think that we will be focusing on increasing the pace of store openings over time. But for now, I'll say that we're very comfortable in meeting guidance.

That makes perfect sense. And then, Anthony, the question on Neto was really more about the reports of financial difficulties in the affiliates. There's some noise among suppliers that maybe they're having difficulty paying suppliers and some suppliers are refusing to ship. I was just curious if you're seeing that or any evidence of that at the point of sale in those 1,500 overlapping locations.

It's very hard to tease out a Neto effect from what is a very strong trend in our same-store sales and the way a store performs in general. But I think, pragmatically, if you walk into a 3B and then you walk into a Neto, you can see for yourself where the customer will prefer to shop. And I'll leave it at that.

Understood. Thank you so much. And again, congratulations on the quarter.

Thank you, Bob. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Jorge Izquierdo. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, Jorge.

Perfect, Jorge Izquierdo from BTG Pactual. Two questions. The first one on your cash balance. Even in a quarter with 130 store openings, you're not burning cash. And I know you're focused on growth, but I was wondering what the long-term outlook for dividends might be or if there's any sort of change in the speech on that front. That's my first question.

Okay, Jorge, I think it's way too early to talk about dividends, but I think anybody who's modeled this business knows that eventually there is significant cash generated. And then the question would be, what's the wise thing to do with this excess cash? And if it's dividend, so be it. But I'll leave it at that for now.

Okay, and then my second question is on the spaghetti chart. We haven't seen it in a couple of quarters, but I was just wondering if you can maybe give an update on the productivity of the newer stores. I know that they're maybe a bit larger in size, but any sort of color on productivity readings from stores open over the last 24 months would be very helpful.

Yeah, you're right about the spaghetti chart in that we refresh it once a year and we'll do so in Q4. But all I can leave you with is that all our vintages continue to perform very solidly and the trend that we've seen with newer vintages doing strongly continues. So, nothing new to report on that front. It seems to be business as usual.

Okay, that's great to hear. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Congrats on the floor.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Joseph. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hi everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I have two parts to my question. First, we noticed that the company accelerated while the market decelerated. Can you help break down the quarterly trends for same-store sales in terms of ticket and traffic to understand how more Mexicans are viewing the value proposition of 3B stores? The second question is regarding gross margin, which we know can fluctuate quarterly based on mix and competitive strategies. I would like to know what we should consider as a normalized level when looking at a 12 to 18-month timeframe. Can we use the 2023 levels as a benchmark for what’s normal going forward? Lastly, regarding the expansion you've mentioned, I understand you're confident in your guidance for this year. With seasonality in mind, it seems possible you could exceed that guidance. I would like to know how we can reconcile the increased SG&A leverage. This number is significant, and I’m interested in understanding the impact of store openings this quarter on revenue and whether those stores could provide even greater operating leverage if opened earlier in the quarter. Thank you very much.

Hey Joe, how are you? Let me start with the first question around what's happening with the tickets? This is what I share with you. What we've seen over time is that the number of tickets, the number of transactions has increased notably. The average ticket size has increased healthily. And this despite having year-over-year prices that are completely flat in our case. And for me, that's a very good indication of very healthy and strong performance. On the matter of gross margins, and again your question of what would be the trend over time, here's the challenge that I pose to everybody. Yes, we can show a higher percentage gross margin, and then it might drop in another quarter. The question is, what happened to sales? So, as you know, we are constantly trading off price versus sales versus peso margin gained. We are always optimizing for this peso margin gains and for volumes. So, believe me, if you see a decrease in gross margin, we've only done it because we believe we're better off on a volume basis and on a sales basis. Otherwise it would not make sense to do it. And I repeat, how we do it is, again, we don't have a gross margin target. We are basically looking at SKU by SKU and optimizing pricing for that SKU to maximize what I just said, which are unit volumes and peso margin. So, modeling, of course, requires you to put a stake in the ground and say, what's the margin going to be over time? You might recall from previous conversations, we've always said in our models, we keep our gross margin flat forever. I'll leave you with that. At some point, one has to pick a number and model it forever. That's what we've done internally. There were two more questions you had.

You had one more question, if you don't mind repeating that last one. In terms of guidance, in terms of expansion storage.

I would like to understand how the openings were distributed throughout the quarter. I'm trying to reconcile the better-than-expected operating leverage with the contributions from those stores. It's possible that some stores were launched later in the quarter, meaning we incurred expenses without yet seeing sales benefits. This could result in higher operating leverage overall. Anthony, it would be helpful if you could break down the same-store sales data between traffic and ticket. Thank you.

Let's answer real estate for a second. We would love that our real estate teams are producing stores on a very regular basis that are flat. We'd rather not see any fluctuations in number of store openings month to month. But the reality is that this is a very dynamic market and things happen in some months faster than others. You see higher numbers of stores in one month and lower in another. For me to tell you with certainty what the number is going to be on a quarter-to-quarter basis is always a tough call. We'd rather just stick to our numbers on an annual basis. Are you going to see a significant increase in the next quarter? I would say no. You will see a healthy increase, but nothing that is going to say, wow, everything has been bunched in the last quarter of the year. So, I'm not sure if I answered your question, but this is how I look at things. And with that same view, Joe, it would be tough to answer the question on operating leverage for Q4 specifically as you're talking about. But overall, as you've seen on an annual basis, we continue to strive for operating leverage, particularly on sales expenses. You had one more question about tickets and traffic, Joe.

Yeah, just if you could like help us breaking down like the contribution of ticket and traffic to same-store sales. I know you guys typically don't break that info, but I mean like that's available information.

Yeah, I know it's valuable, but we don't as you said, we don't go down into that level of details. What I would just repeat what I said before. I think the bulk is coming from a strong increase in transactions, then followed by a good increase in ticket size. This is despite seeing no price increases quarter to quarter. When we look at our average item price from last quarter from Q3 2023 versus Q3 2024, it's flattish.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe.

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Ruben. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hi, Andrew Ruben from Morgan Stanley. Thanks for the questions. I'd like to dig in a bit on the question on the comments around elasticity. So, you mentioned the reinvestments in price, and I'm curious, when you make those changes at a product level, do you tend to see the uplift immediately or is it something that takes consumers time to see and you tend to see the benefit of higher sales at the product level over a period of weeks or months? I think that would be helpful to understand. And then second, we've seen industry sales decelerate and in difficult economic times, maybe you see trade down to TNS Trace Bay. But trying to understand the cadence with which that happens over the short term, do you see yourself more leveraged to decelerating industry trends or at what point do you start to see an uplift from trade down into the channel? Any color on those points would be very helpful.

I'm glad you asked about the timing of price changes and their effects. It varies widely; some categories show immediate responses while others can take up to three quarters to fully realize the impact. This can make it challenging to analyze quarterly results, especially regarding gross margin and dollar contributions. If price changes occur late in a quarter, their effects may roll into the next quarter. So, it’s not uncommon to see some lag. Regarding the market conditions, we’re aware that consumers may be feeling financial pressure, but our performance at 3B remains strong. Our same-store sales trends have been vibrant compared to others, which suggests we are bucking the trend. While it's likely some consumers are switching to our offerings, we can't quantify the extent or speed of this shift. What we do see is an increase in transactions, so we assume some trade-down is happening. Additionally, our value proposition is consistently improving, which contributes to our growth. Historically, once a customer becomes loyal, they're likely to stick around, even in tougher times, making them less likely to leave when conditions improve.

Great. That's helpful color. Thanks, Anthony.

Sure, thanks, Andrew.

Our next question comes from the line of Hector. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hector, are you there? Operator, if Hector is not connecting, let's leave until the next slot.

Yes, our next question comes from the line of Daniela Bretthauer. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hi, everyone.

Daniela, we heard you a little bit and then you cut up.

Sorry, can you hear me now?

Perfect.

Yeah. Thank you so much for taking my question. Daniela with HSBC. Question for Eduardo. Can you just help us understand? I saw that your cash position in U.S. dollar denominated was 2,964. So almost 7% higher sequentially. But the FX gain was lower like PS 300 million versus PS 210. So, I was wondering if there was any change in the FX instrument or where you're, the level that you are at because I actually calculated that you should have had a bigger gain in Q3. And how should we think about this FX gain for Q4? So that's my first question.

Hi, Daniela. Yeah, thank you. I'll make it more simple. If we look at it in U.S. dollars, so what we have the IPO proceeds after paying off the promissory notes, etc., was the balance was PS 170 million. We have in those short-term deposits around PS 150 million. The balance is in our daily balance in that U.S. account that we have. So nothing has changed really. It's all been increasing with interest, but that's it. We have not transferred any of that cash to the operation in Mexico.

Okay, so thanks.

And for Q4, just your second question. For Q4, assume the same thing. We continue to be self-funded and we will not be making transfers to the operation.

Okay, so the same amount and then use whatever FX we have. Okay, thanks. And then I just want to follow up in. I know this has been asked multiple times today, but maybe just ask it in a different way. Have you seen the need to reinvest more in prices to drive sales less bonus from suppliers or any specific change? Because we are still trying to understand how the margin went from record high to flat and whether the accumulated margin which is 16.3. Maybe that's like the level that we should use in our forecast. So maybe help us guide as to what level should be used in our forecast.

Okay, again back to the very tricky question of reality versus modeling where in reality we've explained how we price on, I'm going to say on a continuous basis because this is not a one-time exercise, but it's something that in the company we are continuously elasticity testing our products. We are continuously optimizing price levels and continuously making decisions if the leverage we're getting from scale and the efficiencies we've been getting from scale by just becoming bigger together with our suppliers, whether it gets translated into a gross margin number that, as we've all seen, fluctuates or whether it goes into price. As Andrew correctly pointed out, it gets a reaction in terms of sales, whether it's immediate or with a lag. That's the reality. We only do that because we believe that this is the right thing to do, and it's driving our value proposition improvements over time. That, in turn, is driving same-store sales that continue to be very healthy and in terms that scales. So, it's this virtual cycle that makes us extremely competitive in the market. And now we flip to how do we model this, which is very dynamic and would be highly complex to put in an Excel spreadsheet. The way we've handled it internally is very simply, we've made an assumption about what a typical sales curve for a store is. When a new store opens, you've seen the improvements in store; every vintage is getting stronger and better in terms of where they start and how their sales curve performs steeper, therefore breaking even faster. We've assumed a sales curve for a given gross margin. Therefore, you cannot unlink one from the other. When we look at it, we don't. If you put a lower gross margin, then you must change your sales curve and make it a steeper and higher sales curve. One goes hand in hand with the other. Unfortunately, I'm not going to put a number on the table, but all I'm going to say is whatever number you pick in terms of your model of gross margin, just make sure that the sales growth you put for each store that opens makes sense at that level. You can look at historical trends and basically say this makes sense, and you can assume that these improve over time, and that would be my recommendation in terms of how to look at it.

Thank you. That's very helpful and detailed.

Our next question comes from the line of Hector Mayes. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hector, if you want to send your questions in writing, we'll try to answer them.

Our next question comes from the line of Luis Martinez. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Luis, you appear to be on mute.

Yeah. It was a mistake. I'm sorry. Yeah. That was a mistake.

Please go ahead.

Our next question comes from the line of Santiago. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hello. This is Santiago with Summit Management. Congratulations on the outstanding growth from store openings and strong same-store sales growth. We can see the strong ramp-up in capital expenditures to support the growth of new stores. Can you help us understand more about the unit economics related to the cost of a new store and any information on how it will be reflected in the financial statements? Going forward, is there an ideal range for defining capital expenditures as a percentage of cash flow or any other metric? Thanks.

Thank you for your question. We have a detailed slide regarding our target unit economics that outlines what occurs in the first three years of a store's operation. This includes our target capital expenditures, which are approximately 3.9 million per store, as well as information on cash on cash returns. I encourage you to review that slide for more insights. Regarding your question about whether there is an optimal level for capital expenditures as a percentage of sales, we don't specifically analyze CapEx in that way. Instead, it is viewed more as a consequence connected to overall growth. Based on our track record, we reinvest our earnings back into expansion. Our guidance for this year indicates plans to open between 380 and 420 new stores, demonstrating our commitment to growth by reinvesting all resources. Therefore, we do not have a specific guideline for capital expenditures as a percentage of sales or cash flows at this time.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Jin. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Yes. Hi. Captains of Capital LLC. Gentlemen, could you please take some time and talk more broadly about your relationship with the suppliers? Just sort of a long-term perspective. There's the price aspect and the non-price aspect. As you gain scale, you're negotiating with them. Just longer term, how do you think about that relationship? They're not necessarily exclusive with you guys, right? Are they selling online these days? Just generally how you think about that relationship from a long-term perspective.

Hi, Jin. I'm going to start with a very high-level answer to your question. There is absolutely no doubt that as you get bigger and you scale, your relationship with the suppliers of any kind gets better, and you can get better terms on everything that you're buying. You need to break it down into two groups. One are the traditional FMCG companies with whom we have an excellent relationship. Our relationships and what we do with them has been improving continuously over time in terms of what we offer our customers coming out of these traditional FMCG companies, and the value proposition that through their products, we're able to offer to our customers. The second group is our suppliers who supply our private-label products. These all started as small and medium-sized companies. Over the course of the last 15 years, they have grown at the same pace that we've grown at. Today, they are not so small and not so medium anymore. The relationship with them is deeper. We do significant planning ahead of time with them. We work very closely with one very clear objective in mind, which is to bring our products with the best value proposition to our customers. Again, scale plays a huge role in being able to achieve these efficiencies for both. This is all planned way ahead of time. We work very closely with all our suppliers. The objective is super clear. Just to make sure that every year you have the supply, and what you're supplying is the best possible product for the price.

Got it. Thank you.

Our next question comes from a caller. Please introduce your company and proceed with your question.

Thanks for the follow-up; I really appreciate it. I have two follow-up questions. First, regarding the diluted share count you provided, could you give some insight into what is included and what isn’t? I assume the non-vested shares are excluded, but any clarification would be appreciated. The second question is about top-line dynamics. In the third quarter, there was significant rainfall, and I've noticed many comments about a shift toward traditional channels. I'm curious about how the rain affected your demand, especially since you’re nearby. Was the rainfall beneficial or detrimental for you? Any comments would be helpful. Thank you.

Hi. Regarding the share count, these are what's included this quarter, and we factored in the options that could potentially be converted. This concerns the options that are currently in the money. Our accounting team is using IS 33. Without getting into too many details right now, it's based on IS 33; it specifically relates to the options that are in the money. That answered your first question. The second question was about the impact of rain during the quarter and whether it was beneficial or detrimental.

Tough question to answer. Rain does have an impact. People have a tendency not to go shopping when it's raining here. But net, no. We haven't seen any significant impact from that.

Great. Thank you.

We will pause for further questions.

Did we receive Hector Meyer's questions?

Yeah. Hector, we have questions from you. Let me start off. You're asking on gross margin. Just wanted to understand if something there can also be related to higher prices from suppliers with a weaker peso. To see how your thinking on the pricing strategy of a weak peso creates certain pressure on how gradually would you pass this to the consumers? If you could roughly share the percentage of cost of goods directly or indirectly in dollars through suppliers or imports, that will be great.

Yeah. Let me answer this, Hector. This is not the first time we've gone through a peso weakness period. You're absolutely right to say that behind the scenes, if you go a couple of layers into manufacturing costs, a lot of items are dollarized. You will eventually see the impact of a weaker peso and increasing peso costs. Then comes the million-dollar question of how fast do these increases get passed on to the consumer? If I just look at history, what I've seen is that phenomenon takes anywhere between 8 and 18 months to happen. Once it's been passed on, you basically are back to where you were before as if it never happened. The trends continue and you catch up to what the trend was. That's been our experience in terms of seeing peso weakness.

No. That's it. That was the only question?

We will pause for any further questions.

Operator, do we have any more questions from anybody? Okay. Well, again, thank you to our investors and to the analysts that are covering us. As always, we're very happy to answer all your questions. Please feel free to reach out to us at any time. Thank you again very much.

That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.